Hadley Tow Freeway Service Patrol Program manager Nick Ross talks to a motorist on the northbound 605 freeway north of Peck Rd. in the city of Industry on Friday morning, June 13, 2008. The motorist was having problems with his suspension. Ross carries five gallons of gasoline and 5 gallons of diesel fuel, in foreground, in case drivers run out of gasoline. Ross did not find any motorists who ran out of gasoline this morning. (SGVN/Staff Photo by Raul Roa/SVCity)

Slow drivers are clogging freeways, commuters are filling trains, and the brave among us are applying for motorcycle licenses at record rates.

As gas prices climb, experts in the transportation industry are starting to wonder: Is the California car culture finally buckling under the pressure of expensive fuel?

“Apparently we have hit a pain threshold,” said Denise Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for Metrolink. “Four-dollar gas seemed to be a tipping point.”

In January 2007, a gallon of gas cost about $2.60, but the price increased to a current average of $4.58, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

And it seems the public is now reacting. Traffic on some major Los Angeles-area freeway corridors has decreased 5 percent compared to the same months last year, according to data from Caltrans.

Ridership on the Metrolink has increased by about 10 percent this month on some lines.

“We’ve broken our personal best for ridership four times in two weeks,” Tyrrell said.

Metro Rail light-rail ridership last month shot up 6 percent over May 2007, one of the highest one-month spikes on record, according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Foothill Transit’s ridership went up 7 percent this April compared to April 2007, according to data from the company.

And the number of drivers with motorcycle licenses increased by 64,000 people in 2007, which is the most recent data available by the DMV.

“We definitely are getting people who are asking about motorcycles,” said Don Dahl, sales manager at the Whittier Fun Center.

Some smaller, freeway-legal motorcycles get about 70 mpg, according to industry Web sites.

“Even your good, all-around cruisers get 40-50 mpg,” he said.

Car shoppers are walking into dealerships and immediately asking to look at models with good fuel economy, said Puente Hills Chevrolet sales manager Joe Rodriguez.

“People just want to know what will save them gas,” he said, adding that customers have been asking about the Malibu hybrid, which gets 32 mpg highway, and the HHR, which gets 28 mpg.

A Whittier bicycle trail that has not even officially opened yet has been swarmed with cyclists and walkers, said Whittier Assistant City Manager Nancy Mendez of the city’s Greenway Trail, which is mostly paved.

Allan Zolnekoff, a self-proclaimed car nut and former Whittier city councilman, said more mass-transit projects will not be built unless high gas prices continue for a few years.

“The only thing that will change the political will is absolute crisis,” he said. “The political establishment needs to feel the fear of the electorate throwing them out of their political position if they don’t do better on transportation.”

He said Los Angeles County’s car culture is largely a myth.

“It’s not that everybody is so enamored with their cars,” he said. “The problem is that our public transportation does not get you where you want to go.”

In the coming months, employers and government agencies will increasingly ask employees to rideshare, work longer hours on 4-day-work- week programs, telecommute and find other ways to reduce driving, said Assemblyman Mike Eng, D-El Monte, the newly chosen head of the Assembly’s Transportation Committee.

He has friends who are suddenly interested in economy cars and riding the bus.

“We’ve got to keep our buses clean, our trains on time and our systems efficient so, even if gas prices go down, which I don’t really see happening, taking public transit becomes part of the culture,” he said.

A spokesman for the region’s planning agency said the cultural change mentioned by Eng may have a chance to set in as motorists react to high prices.